North Korea's Internet Under Mass Cyber Attack

[TheSandman21]

I guess North Korea didn't pay their internet bill. Just unplug them. It can't be that hard to do.

 

[lcpiper]

Extremely poor decision on our part, from a defense standpoint. Showed our hand to the world (Russia, and China I'm looking at you,) and now they know our preferred method of attack, and origination points.

So at any point they decide to get cute, we are effectively neutralize.

No we aren't. We can put up mobile access anywhere in the world. You can't believe the data that flowed in and out of the war zones the last 10+ years.

We could hack their ass from a submarine if we wanted to
Or a Drone, or a ... Satellite

 

[dr.stevil]

I this was a USA response it sets a bad precedence. why? simple

First off even with the info we do have on the attackers there is no direct link to NK government. So if this was proving a point it would be the wrong approach as we are not targeting the attacker group responsible but rather the whole country

Have you seen the intel they've gathered? I was under the impression that the FBI/various govt agencies had concluded that NK was responsible for the attack (or last I read)

 

[pcjunkie]

I guess North Korea didn't pay their internet bill. Just unplug them. It can't be that hard to do.

Four connections...all down. What's that 20 seconds to unplug?

 

[TheMadZealot]

I'm probably missing something here, but when does a government get involved to defend a corporate entity?

I was kind of with you when I thought about it from a cost perspective, for instance, shouldn't private corporations be responsible for their own security? The problem is we have nation states engaging in cyber attacks, espionage, whatever.

The U.S. could easily afford to ignore it if it were say profit minded hackers, however it is clearly another nation state and/or there are political motives that threaten our national security.

If someone shot a cruise missile at the U.S. we couldn't ignore it just because it didn't target any government or military assets. That is how the U.S. is viewing the Sony hacks.

 

[Galvin]

Isn't north korea stuck in the 1960s?

 

[dr.kevin]

I've seen this movie plot before--
some little guy frames a whole government, provoking other govts to attack.

 

[chockomonkey]

There is a simple solution to this :

Simply have IANA/ICANN revoke North Korea's IP address assignments and AS numbers. Since they don't allow their citizens to have internet, and the only thing they use the internet for is hacking other people, I see no reason why they should be allowed on the internet.

Why hasn't this been done yet? Seems like quite an easy thing to do.

 

[boss99]

Someone on Reddit said that if we wanted to really make them suffer, we'd install Comcast as their ISP.

 

[Skripka]

Someone on Reddit said that if we wanted to really make them suffer, we'd install Comcast as their ISP.

Have Verizon be contracted to build out fiber landline internet... And have Verizon say LTE is good enough

 

[lcpiper]

Why hasn't this been done yet? Seems like quite an easy thing to do.

I bet it is, and it's possibly a good idea in that this option might satisfy the basic requirement. But it would also serve to cut off a medium of communication and there is no telling how much vital stuff we might be getting from North Koreans who are not happy with the direction their country is headed. Maybe enforcing further isolation isn't the answer.

Someone earlier suggested that North Korea was like a bad brother to South Korea. Perhaps as the US deals with this we are also talking with South Korea, (I'd hope), and maybe this is what we came up with as a best approach.

Sony is a Japanese Corporation and maybe we talked with Japan and they also voted on this as well.

And maybe our military convinced our leaders that this offers a great opportunity to stretch our new and inexperienced cyber-warfare legs. I can't say for sure, but if we are in fact conducting a cyber attack on a foreign government then we would be foolish not to be ready to back it up with a real non-cyber option cause these guys can be squirrely.

 

[frenetic_ferret]

I bet it is, and it's possibly a good idea in that this option might satisfy the basic requirement. But it would also serve to cut off a medium of communication and there is no telling how much vital stuff we might be getting from North Koreans who are not happy with the direction their country is headed. Maybe enforcing further isolation isn't the answer.

Someone earlier suggested that North Korea was like a bad brother to South Korea. Perhaps as the US deals with this we are also talking with South Korea, (I'd hope), and maybe this is what we came up with as a best approach.

Sony is a Japanese Corporation and maybe we talked with Japan and they also voted on this as well.

And maybe our military convinced our leaders that this offers a great opportunity to stretch our new and inexperienced cyber-warfare legs. I can't say for sure, but if we are in fact conducting a cyber attack on a foreign government then we would be foolish not to be ready to back it up with a real non-cyber option cause these guys can be squirrely.

Sony is a Japanese Corporation. However their movie branch is an American subsidiary, IE that branch is American for tax, location, and other purposes. This is fairly common with multinational global corps.

 

[[Spectre]]

Extremely poor decision on our part, from a defense standpoint. Showed our hand to the world (Russia, and China I'm looking at you,) and now they know our preferred method of attack, and origination points.

So at any point they decide to get cute, we are effectively neutralize.

So, if your theory is true, you really think the US went with their "A" game here when their "F-" game would have worked and given absolutely nothing away?

Really?

 

[gglenn]

You would think they would have learned by now that you can't use the phone and the internet at the same time.

 

[pcjunkie]

You would think they would have learned by now that you can't use the phone and the internet at the same time.

I heard it was the Steam Holiday Sale that finally took them down.

 

[cyclone3d]

Someone on Reddit said that if we wanted to really make them suffer, we'd install Comcast as their ISP.

That still wouldn't hurt enough.

Comcast doesn't have a prayer to be as crappy as AT&T when it comes to ISPs.

 

[Flapjack]

I just wanted to say this was a great reply. The post you were replying to was ignorant.

Even before Citizens United, US corporations were afforded the same protections from outside aggressors as US citizens. Military responses have occurred in Central/South America and the Middle East in response to various groups that were deemed a threat to US corporate interests. There is a rather detailed accounting of several examples in Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.

I'm not advocating one way or the other for those examples; I'm just pointing out that the precedent has long been established. Where it does make sense is in a situation where a nation-state engages in an active campaign to hack into the computer networks of a corporate entity like when the Wall Street Journal alleged that they were hacked by the Chinese government. If your personal computer were hacked by someone and they stole personally identifiable information from you, you would probably want a response by law enforcement, whether they were able to use your stolen identity or not. In the case of multinational corporations, the response involves the federal government, since international relations are generally considered outside the scope of states' authority.

Of course, when all else fails, follow the money...

 

[Coaxial]

Yes, and my only logic being: 'murica!

So, if your theory is true, you really think the US went with their "A" game here when their "F-" game would have worked and given absolutely nothing away?

Really?

 

[Jagger100]

I'm probably missing something here, but when does a government get involved to defend a corporate entity?

When doesn't a government defend its citizens and business entities. Its why countries exist. Do you think war is like football where the worst that happens to the losers is that they go home with hurt feelings?

The first standing US military branch, the US Navy was created to protect our trade ships from pillage or extortion and since the US was an exporter of raw material which was the only source of revenue to turn around and buy necessities that weren't made here, it hurt everyone's livelihood.

Defense exists to protect civilian's and civilian's method of livelihood which today includes 'evil' corporations.

What would happen if someone with better resources than NK decided to fuck with the 5 largest banks in the country?

 

[Flapjack]

Another good post.

Slowly, I feel the [H] is racking more and more trolls and people who are just parroting words and beliefs from others they hear.

 

[[Spectre]]

Yes, and my only logic being: 'murica!

Good to know you have no idea what you are talking about then!

 

[bmellis1984]

Could give North Korea the plans to build Nukes...... Bet the data sent for that would create the first ever "Nuke-their-net" attack

 

[Comixbooks]

Dennis Rodman was downloading porn at 28K

 

[Skripka]

Could give North Korea the plans to build Nukes...... Bet the data sent for that would create the first ever "Nuke-their-net" attack

Back 10 years ago on my campus that had no, and I mean zero, QOS or bandwidth management rules on their network or its software...one smartass down the hall tried email attaching the first 400million digits of pie. It crashed the entire campus internet in seconds...from Friday night until Monday morning.